By Mark Murray
“Sometimes when nothing good is showing on the television I read. When I read, I get to understand more so I have better practice in Comprehension” said Hamani Paul.
“Usually when I take off my boots (sneakers), like put down my bag and paly with the dogs then I come in, change my clothes bathe, eat my dinner and sometimes have conversations with my parents then study, discuss it with my parents and then straight to bed,” added the boy.
This was the daily routine of the 11-year-old who is now awaiting his results after writing this year’s National Grade Six Assessment at the Winfer Gardens Primary School on Wednesday (April 12, 2017) and Thursday (April 13, 2017).
The lad said the hours were long in preparation for the annual examination as he credits his parents for pushing him the extra mile.“Like in Paper One normally my parents told me cancel out the two that are far away from the answer and focus on the 2 that are close and then put your knowledge into question and circle the answer,” he said.
The day would typically start at 4:00 am “then after studying I prepare for school after I arrive, 8-8:30am to push in some work with Mathematics afterward practice with Grammar and in the afternoon we have some discussions with Social Studies and Science.”
Being up that early was just the effort to better prepare for the examinations since after school it is time to attend “lesson which is on the same street with my school and we have further discussions and sometimes Comprehension passages to practice on,” he said.
For this future Pilot Mathematics is one of his favorite subjects as he predicts not doing so well in the area of Science,“I like it because I find it easy like simple problems I could do them in my head so when it is time to write it down I have already done it in my head.”
His mother, Carolyn Paul said it was after his mock examinations that she noticed he fell short in the subject area of Science but was and is always strong in Mathematics.
“Science I find, he is a little weak in the Science so myself and husband we were doing a lot more work with him in Science, a lot more practice papers, a lot of the systems (biological systems) to get him to understand how the system is function and the different parts of the system cause he then to forget them so we went through those a lot,” explained the mother.
The school Hamani is hoping for is Queens College because according to him “it is one of the most prestigious schools in Guyana.”
His mother said “I would have told him Queens and Bishops because he would always tell his brother that ‘I am gonna be the one in the family to bring a top school’ cause his brother is at an ‘A’ Grade school so they will always have competition among them and so I expect him to do very well.”
While Hamani enjoys playing football, cricket and online games this young man is a lover of reading and according to him reading increases his knowledge. His mother said a lot was invested because education is a high priority for the Paul family.
“In our family most of the persons would have went all the way to University and through College my mom being a teacher, she is always high on education and even while she was here, she migrated and I was at University she worked with both of my boys (Sons) and she would always stress, education is the key to getting all your dreams and all the things you want to achieve in life. So we passed that down, even my husband he also believes strongly on education and so we push education a lot,” added Mrs. Paul.
She also recounted that “It’s a lot of investment in textbooks and having him get into the routine of studying cause that is a habit and something you have to repeatedly do because it doesn’t come like that. So, even from Grade One getting him into the habit of studying, reading and all the other preparation started from way back and he is kind of self-motivated so he pushes himself and he does a lot of the work on his own with very little supervision most of the time.”
The woman even told News Room that when it was getting closer to the examination Hamani wanted to read more novels “so we (Parents) had to be looking over him a lot more.”
This soon to be high schooler is confident that he will be able to secure marks that could place him in one of the top schools in the country.
From a class of 42 children, in Hamani’s mind the only competitor is a close friend since they often contest with each other for the top three positions around examination time.
“Well my friend Daniel Mazukie who like came over to our school in Grade Three and since then he has been like up to my standard and sometimes beating me so I think he is the closest” said Hamani.
Until the examination results are published Hamani plans to relax until it is time to hit the books once again, this time at his new High School for the new school term in September.
